The Child's Right to an Education for Open-Mindedness: A Moral and Legal Theory of Materials Access and Selection in Educational Curricula

Abstract

This research arises out of the belief that curricular materials selection does not adequately align with children's educational rights. I defend the position that the child's interest in an education for open-mindedness, in particular, is integral to her roles as an autonomous person who will govern the course of her own life and as a citizen in a liberal democracy. In order to make good choices in both capacities, the child must be capable of seeing beyond her presently held beliefs and values to other options, and must be capable of subjecting those current beliefs and values to critical scrutiny. I argue that the willingness and ability to entertain seriously views other than one's own presumes the possession of the virtue of open-mindedness. The nurturance of the virtue of open-mindedness must correspond to developmental theory. This would suggest that the early years of relatively unsophisticated rational capacities would be marked by the inculcation of beliefs and values fundamental to the virtue of open-mindedness; in later childhood, the development of open-mindedness will require engagement of the critical faculties through confrontation with challenging and controversial ideas. The virtue of open mindedness is so central to autonomous personhood and democratic citizenship, I contend, that it is a vital interest which merits the ascription of a moral right to children. An acknowledgement of the morally egalitarian nature of children and parents leads me to say that the child's moral right to an education for open-mindedness pre empts even the parental right to direct the education of one's child, as the former right is more fundamental to personhood. This moral right is not only the ground of moral duties on the part of others, I suggest, but is also the impetus to hail a corresponding legal right. I conclude that the child's right to an education for open-mindedness, while currently a legal orphan, can find a constitutional home in section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which guarantees the right to life, liberty and security of the person, and section 2, which protects the fundamental freedoms of conscience, religion, thought, belief, opinion and expression.